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Weekly News Roundup Jan 8-14, 2018

Every day we scan news headlines and social media for items of interest to the field of suicide prevention. Here’s what we found last week:

‘We are dying’: Maskwacis community members overwhelmed by suicides – CBC
January 14, 2018
The First Nations community of Maskwacis in Alberta (pop. 17,000) has had 14 suicide deaths since December 2017. “Our children are crying for help. It’s violence, it’s poverty — we’re facing it all first hand,” said Emily Soosay, who recently lost her 22-year-old son to suicide. “But it’s not just up to chief and council. It’s up to us as parents, community members, grassroots people to keep our youth alive and well.”

YouTube pares back Logan Paul partnership after Japan suicide video – Japan Times
January 11, 2018
In response to overwhelming negative public response to Logan Paul’s YouTube video showing a person who died by suicide, YouTube has decided to remove Logan Paul from it’s Google Preferred platform and put future partnership projects with Paul on hold. “In light of recent events, we have decided to remove Logan Paul’s channels from Google Preferred. Additionally, we will not feature Logan in season 4 of ‘Foursome’ and his new Originals are on hold,” said Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube in a statement.

Drug-overdose suicides may be going undetected – Reuters
January 11, 2018
The first large study of US death investigations has found that many drug intoxification deaths have been recorded as being caused by drug overdose when in many cases it’s possible that the cause was suicide. In cases of death caused by drug intoxication, it is very difficult to distinguish whether or not the death was intentional (suicide) or unintentional (drug overdose). “The problem with inaccurate suicide accounting is that it impedes our understanding and prevention of suicide and drug deaths,”said lead author Ian Rockett.

Men do seek help for depression. I wish my dad had – Guardian
January 9, 2018
Zac Seidler lost his father to suicide, and in this mental health opinion piece, describes his experience as a survivor of suicide loss and the journey his dad went through trying to get help for his depression: “This story may sound unique but it’s not, it’s just that these stories are rarely told. I started working in men’s mental health to counteract (the silence surrounding mental health issues and suicide) and to shine a light on the fact that men will and do seek help; they just need to find the right person to listen. It’s the system that needs to change, not men like my dad.”

Study examines California prison guards’ high suicide rate – National Post
January 9, 2018
A study done by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the labour union for corrections officers in the state, has found that the annual suicide rate of corrections officers exceeds that of the general Californian population. “About 10 percent of prison guards say they have considered or attempted suicide, a rate nearly three times that of the general US population, according to data provided to the AP from a survey completed by 8,300 of California’s 30,000 correctional and parole officers. It’s even higher among retired guards — about 14 percent, similar to the suicide risk among military veterans.”

13 reasons to reconsider – Globe and Mail
January 8, 2018
Emily Simon Lukaszek, a suicide attempt survivor, says in this First Person piece for the Globe that Netflix’s controversial 13 Reasons Why TV show made her reconsider her decision to attempt to take her own life for a second time. Lukaszek says, “I watched the show with meticulous regard, taking breaks when I felt overwhelmed, stopping sometimes halfway-through episodes or waiting a week before I watched the next three. Overwhelmed may be an understated word to fit the context. But the reality is, by the time I got to the brutality of the suicide scene which so closely mimicked my own experience, I knew suicide was no longer an option for me.”
Related: Statement re: Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why series – Centre for Suicide Prevention

Google searches correlate with suicides – American Council on Science and Health
January 8, 2018
Dr. Vincent Chandler, a professor at St. Mary’s University, has found an association between suicide and Google searches for suicide-related terms. Chandler found that a 1% increase in suicide-related search terms corresponded with 54 additional suicides in the US. There are many limitations to the study, including the fact that there is no way to know if the people who searched for suicide-related terms on Google were the same people who died by suicide.

Suicide, social media, and internet celebrities: how to talk to your kids – CMHA Kelowna
January 4, 2018
This guide was written in the wake of YouTube celebrity Logan Paul’s video showing a person who died by suicide in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest, a suicide hotspot. The guide tells parents how to talk about the video to their children, who may follow Logan Paul on YouTube.

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